When the indigenous people of the Caribbean had been almost entirely wiped out by European-introduced diseases and the vicissitudes of slavery on some islands (e.g., Puerto Rico), the Spanish obtained new slaves among the Maya of the Yucatan Peninsula. My kids had friends in California who were nominally Puerto Rican by origin, but they (and their mother) were the spitting images of Maya I saw in Guatemala, as judged by stature and visages. So, just a note about slave labor, eradication and translocation of people.

The point is the following. The native population was not entirely wiped out at all. What dissapeared it was the Native culture, rather than the native genetics.

You can see studies on the genetics of Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Cuba on the web, and you will confirm that the Tainos never went extinct.

When the indigenous people of the Caribbean had been almost entirely wiped out by European-introduced diseases and the vicissitudes of slavery on some islands (e.g., Puerto Rico), the Spanish obtained new slaves among the Maya of the Yucatan Peninsula. My kids had friends in California who were nominally Puerto Rican by origin, but they (and their mother) were the spitting images of Maya I saw in Guatemala, as judged by stature and visages. So, just a note about slave labor, eradication and translocation of people.

There is a misconception here. Tainos and Arawaks never went extinct. Profesor Martinez Cruzado proved already that the population of Puerto Rico is Amerindian descendent. So, the idea that the Indians went extinct in the Caribbean is a myth. They didn't extinct. They mixed.

This is obvious from the studies of Martinez-Cruzado, and also from literary sources of Colonial times, that shows that admixture was in very large scale. By the way, one of the reasons why the Tainos were "declared extincted" in the Caribbean was simply because that was the excuse needed for importing slaves. So, it was convenient for farmers of the region to declare the natives extincted. Which is not really what happened there.